


Never Go Into The Cellar

by MothTale



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blood and Gore, Creepy Cabin, Dark Comedy, Deaf Clint Barton, Discussions of Cannibalism, Gen, Horror, Implied Cannibalism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Avengers (2012), Taxidermy, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 21:11:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16416032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MothTale/pseuds/MothTale
Summary: There are worse places to spend the night than a creepy cabin in the woods, right?Clint and Natasha are about to find out.





	Never Go Into The Cellar

**Author's Note:**

> I got this done in time for Halloween!  
> This is a little more light-hearted than my other Avengers horror fic - although with more cannibalism.

The car packed in about forty miles from civilisation according to the map.  


‘Should’ve let me pick the car…’ Clint muttered.  


'We're supposed to remain inconspicuous. There is nothing inconspicuous about stealing a Porsche.'  


'Don't know what you mean...'  


Natasha ignored the bait - Clint was still doing his damnedest to convince her that he was as dumb as he looked - and stepped out of the car. She laid the map on the hood. The trees shivered in the breeze and a few leaves fell, one landing in her hair. She brushed it aside.  


After a moment Clint followed her. He glanced at the map, but didn't interfere besides pinning down one corner with his palm.  


The road behind them was empty. Whatever tail they'd had, they'd lost it when they switched cars.  


It was about one in the afternoon, and the sky was clear. That was another plus. Or a minus. Because the road curved like a child's scribble, and the contour lines indicated that it got pretty steep further on. There was no way they'd make the next town before nightfall.  


Natasha abandoned the idea of the road and traced her finger across the green expanse of the map. There were trails, the area was some sort of national park, offering a much more direct route. They still wouldn't make it before dark, but the forest would be less exposed than following the road.  


'How do you feel about hiking?'  


'No strong feelings.'  


'Good. Grab your gear. We're going that way.'  


Natasha pointed into the trees.  


\--  


They hoofed it through ankle-deep fall leaves and within twenty minutes were on the trail. The silence was companionable, and Natasha allowed herself to admire the colours of the trees. She kept pace with Clint without great effort, and the cool breeze felt good on the back of her neck.  


She was immensely grateful that she travelled light. Most of her weapons were already concealed upon her person, and her rucksack contained little else besides back-up weapons, some spare ammo, food and water.  


Clint, with his bow, was a bit more encumbered, but she didn't hear any complaints.  


At one point Natasha felt eyes on her, looked and saw a deer standing about twenty-five feet from the path.  


Clint clapped his hands, and the deer ran off.  


'That could have been dinner,' Natasha said.  


'We have food. It would've been a waste - no way would we be able to eat a whole deer between us.'  


She nodded at his reasoning, smiling a little to herself.  


They checked the map a few times, wary of getting lost.  


'That would just be embarrassing. I mean, imagine that - two secret agents getting lost and dying in the woods. I would _hate_ that. I'd particularly hate the part where we both go half-mad with hunger and you kill me and then butcher and eat my body.'  


'That is a rather strange thing to think about. And why am I the one doing the killing and eating?' Natasha asked.  


Clint shrugged.  


'Just the way I see it going. I've done some shit to survive, but I draw the line at cannibalism - at least I think I do anyway. We'll see when we get to that point. Far as I know I haven't got any diseases or parasites, so you should be fine as long as you cook me properly.'  


'Who says I would want to eat you anyway? Perhaps I would rather die as well.'  


Clint grinned. 'Great. Then we'll die together. Eventually some hiker'll find out bones lying next to each other. We'll be one of those unsolved mysteries they show on tv - something like 'In mid 2003 a hiker out with his dog came across two skeletons in the Whatchamacallit National Forest. What is the real identity of this Jane and John Doe and how did they come to this tragic fate? Tonight, we try to find out.''  


'You have put a lot of thought into this...'  


Clint laughed.  


'More likely we would never be found,' Natasha said. 'We would simply disappear.'  


'SHIELD would have a fit. They'd think we'd gone rogue. Can you imagine them looking over their shoulders for the next thirty or forty years, in case we come back? And the whole time we'd be lying out here...'  


Natasha looked at Clint. She was often confused by the relationship Clint seemed to have with his employers (and now hers too, of course). He was loyal, she would not question that, but he also seemed to take a perverse amount of pleasure in, if not exactly biting, then gently nibbling the hand which fed him.  


Clint stopped suddenly, peering into the trees.  


Immediately Natasha readied herself - to dodge, to shoot, to run.  


'Is that...?'  


She relaxed a little when Clint showed no signs of reaching for his bow, or of crouching out of sight.  


She followed his line of sight but saw nothing.  


Clint stepped off the trail, sliding down the slight slope. Natasha still didn't see what he was looking at, but she trusted his eyes. They hadn't snacked on any unidentified berries, so she assumed he wasn't hallucinating.  


Once at the bottom of the slope Clint turned and waved to her. _Come on_.  


Natasha didn't like leaving the path. Wildernesses, even patrolled and mapped wildernesses like this one, were not forgiving.  


'Spotted a cabin. Hopefully it's empty and we can borrow it for the night,' Clint said, gesturing ahead.  


'And if it's not?'  


'We ask politely?'  


Natasha looked back over her shoulder. Already the trail was almost hidden by the ridge. She turned back to Clint.  


'If you get us lost I will kill you, I will butcher you and I will smoke you. Then, I will snack on you until I reach civilisation again. Alone.'  


'We're not going to get lost. And that's a good idea; the smoking bit - at least I won't have died in vain.'  


'Yes. Ideally you would be taller, and then there would be more of you to sustain me, but such is life.'  


'I'm not short.'  


He looked more hurt by that suggestion than the idea of being turned into jerky.  


'I never said you were. I just said you could be taller.'  


'Yeah, well, have you seen the meat on my biceps?'  


'Yes. I imagine one arm would be sufficient for almost two days.'  


The cabin was what an unscrupulous realtor might refer to as a 'fixer-upper'.  


It was no wonder Natasha hadn't seen it. The woods had begun the process of re-absorption and the roof was almost completely hidden under a thick sheet of dead leaves.  


Most of the windows were boarded over. The few that weren't held only shards of shattered glass and ravaged curtains.  


Clint went up to try and look inside.  


'It looks pretty abandoned.'  


Natasha held back on saying what she thought.  


She went around to the front of the cabin.  


There was a lopsided porch. The first thing Natasha saw was the windchime - made of bird-bones. She tapped it and the skulls rattled. A spider crawled out of one eye socket before dropping down onto the deck.  


She went to inspect the door.  


So far she hadn't heard the sound of a shotgun being loaded, so she hoped she wasn't about to get blown away by some mad, old hermit.  


Clint thought dying of hunger (his own or Natasha's) was an embarrassing way to go, for Natasha taking a shotgun blast to the chest from some random hick was right up there.  


She knocked on the door.  


Clint appeared around the side of the house.  


'I don't see anyone. Dusty as hell in there. Hope you don't have any allergies.'  


He glanced at the door. There didn't seem to be a lock on it.  


'Ladies first.'  


Natasha shoved open the door.  


\--  


'That is a whole lot of taxidermy...'  


About forty artificial eyes, some shrouded in cobwebs, stared down at them. None were human, Natasha made sure of that before she stepped further into the place.  


'It's like a fucking Halloween haunted house in here,' Clint said. He sounded absolutely delighted. Yes, Natasha decided, there was something wrong with Clint Barton.  


There was an old oil lamp sitting on a table. Natasha checked it, making sure she wasn't about to accidentally incinerate them, and then tried to light it with the box of ancient looking matches sat next to it. To her surprise it lit.  


'Holy shit...'  


More things in the room came into focus.  


There was a kitchenette in one corner, with a sink, a stove and a grimy refrigerator. Natasha had no desire to see the inside of it.  


On the walls were photographs, some framed newspaper clippings, and a faded painting of a lakeside.  


Natasha rounded off her observations by cataloguing the potential weapons throughout the main room of the cabin. An axe in one corner, some shears hanging on a hook by the door, a pair of heavy scissors, a large whiskey bottle, several discarded boards with nails in the ends, two cleavers and a kitchen knife on the knife rack were among the most lethal.  


'Do you want the cot?' Clint said.  


Natasha looked across the room at the rusty metal contraption and its grey mattress.  


'I'll take the floor.'  


There was a broom which had made it onto the second tier of Natasha's weapon list - under the heading 'things I could use to kill someone if I really had to' - so she started to clear a space on the floor where she could sleep.  


Clint opened a closet-sized door to reveal a bone-dry toilet and a tiny handbasin. He tried the faucet.  


'No water.'  


She wasn't surprised. But both of them had water in their bags, so they'd be fine.  


They could have carried on, there was still a little over an hour of daylight left, but Natasha doubted if they'd find another cabin in that time.  


It may have been a glorified shack, but it was better than huddling together like penguins around the roots of a tree, which had been her initial plan.  


Clint moved and the floor creaked in a strange way.  


He got down on his knees and ran his fingers over a seam in the floor. His fingers closed around a ring, hidden by dust.  


He looked up at her.  


'We need to check it. For security reasons.'  


It would have been more convincing if he hadn't been grinning while he said it.  


'Just go on and say you want to explore the creepy cabin's creepy cellar.'  


Clint lifted the trapdoor. The hinges shrieked in protest and when he let go the motion of the door hitting the floorboards sent a tsunami of dust rippling out in all directions.  


Clint got a torch from his bag and shone it into the cellar.  


Natasha was glad to see he didn't entirely throw caution to the wind, as he checked the stairs to make sure they'd hold his weight before he headed down into the dark.  


She heard him mutter to himself in disbelief, as she sat down in her newly swept spot and unscrewed the cap on a bottle of water.  


'Uh...Nat...?'  


Again with the nickname. She supposed she'd made a mistake not hitting him in the throat the first time he'd used it. It had set a precedent.  


'What?'  


'How exactly do you tell if a mummified head is real and not just a really convincing replica?'  


'Shit,' Natasha swore, snatching up her bag and rifling through it for her own torch. She took out her sidearm from its concealed spot and stepped down into the cellar.  


\--  


The cellar was more of the same. Dust and wooden boards and cobwebs thick as candyfloss in all the corners. Clint stood in front of a cabinet on the far side of the room. He glanced over his shoulder back at her, then stepped back with his torch focused on the shelves.  


'If those are all real, then the guy who owns this cabin is definitely a serial killer.'  


'Why does it have to be a guy?' Natasha said, stepping forward to examine the heads.  


There were seven of them, all dried to the colour of molasses with the skin pressed tight against their skulls. Six still had most of their hair, in a variety of styles. From the shape of the brows Natasha estimated three women, and four men. She could see the remains of a pair of glasses on one head, and the glint of fillings in the molars of another. However long they'd been here, they were not from an archaeological dig - some forgotten individual from the distant past - but from someone with access to dentists and opticians.  


'Fair point,' Clint said. 'So...uh, severed heads in the cellar?'  


'None of them look fresh. And with all that dust up there, I don't think anyone has been here in a very long time. I think we're safe.'  


'Unless...the killer's still here...' Clint said, in a low voice.  


Natasha shone her torch in his face.  


'Oww. Ow. What? Have you never seen one of those movies?'  


'You Americans and your movies...'  


She put away her gun and headed back to the stairs.  


'We should probably call someone once we leave...' Clint murmured, still looking at the heads in the cabinet. 'Someone's probably been looking for these people.'  


She heard him shut the cabinet before he followed her back upstairs.  


\--  


They ate a light dinner - consisting of energy bars, crackers, and a pack of raisins.  


Clint propped the front door open in an attempt to air the cabin slightly. At one point he lifted the mattress on the cot and caused an exodus of small, feathery legged, tiny-bodied spiders.  


'I really hope none of those are poisonous...'  


Natasha glared at him as the spiders scurried around her feet.  


'You're spreading dust in my space.'  


'Kinda hard not to. This whole place is covered.'  


Clint frowned before flopping down onto the mattress. The springs screeched like a man on the rack.  


'Good thing I've got all my tetanus shots...' he muttered. 'I might join you on the floor actually.'  


'Go ahead,' Natasha said. She went to the oil lamp and turned it down until it went out. There was still a little ambient light, enough for Natasha to still make out the shapes of the antlers on the walls. On the plus side, however, she could no longer see all the dirt and cobwebs. She shrugged off her jacket and was in the middle of folding it up into a makeshift pillow when she heard the voices outside.  


She knew Clint heard it too, as well as the sound of multiple sets of feet wading through the leaves towards them. The voices were young, too carefree to belong to a team of enemy agents. No. This was something else, something almost as bad.  


Natasha snatched the strap of her bag and rolled into Clint, shoving him until he rolled too - under the rusty cot and out of sight.  


Teenagers.  


There were few creatures, Natasha thought, quite as oblivious, as cavalier, as the American teenager. If you told them to duck, they'd go 'why should I listen you?'. And then, somehow, it'd be your fault when they got their teeth knocked out.  


From under the bed she had clear enough view of the door and the main body of the cabin. She pushed back, elbowing Clint until he shuffled back far enough for her to feel confident they were both hidden.  


The voices got closer.  


Most of Clint's stuff was in the corner, between the cot and the wall.  


His bow, however, was out in the open. Propped against the wall on the far side of the cabin.  


Well, there was nothing they could do about that now.  


The porch creaked.  


'...telling you, this is the place.'  


'It looks gross. Jeff, I want to go back to the house.'  


'Hey, no one's stopping you Cindy. Go back if you wanna.'  


The girl's complaint was blotted out by the creaking as several pairs of feet shuffled onto the porch. Something heavy hit one of the boarded up windows.  


The door swung open.  


'Holy shit!'  


'What'd you do, Sam?'  


Another female voice. This one lacked the wheedling quality of the first. There were five of them, as far as Natasha could tell from the voices and the footsteps.  


'Hey, I did nothing. The door just opened. Not my fault...'  


A pair of grey, size nine sneakers edged into view.  


'Get a look at this place...'  


Another pair of shoes. Red, size nine-and-a-half.  


'Seriously guys...?'  


The first female voice again.  


'Man, kinda dark in here.'  


'No shit. Hey, go get that lamp.'  


'Let me. Trusting Cody with fire is just asking for third degree burns.'  


'Aww, Hannah. You never let me have any fun.'  


A pair of no-nonsense boots made their way across the floorboards. After a few moments the light flared up.  


The other girl gave a little shriek from outside, probably at the sight of all the dead animals bolted onto the walls.  


Black and white sneakers, expensive compared to the other two, passed the threshold. Their owner turned back.  


'Come on, Cindy baby. Place is abandoned. Has been for almost twenty years now.'  


The last pair of shoes were pink, with fashionably chunky heels. They tiptoed grudgingly over the doorsill.  


'Why'd you bring us here anyway?'  


'So you guys haven't heard the story?'  


'What story?'  


'I have. You're talking about that girl who got killed, right?'  


'...Someone got killed?'  


'Yeah, but it was decades ago. So, you want to hear the story?'  


There was a scraping noise as the prospective storyteller pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down.  


'It was coming up to Halloween, and this group of college kids were out here camping, partying, just basically having a good time. It's around midnight, and one of the girls says she's got a headache and she'd gonna call it a night. So she heads back to the tents - they're only about ten, twenty paces from the bonfire where everyone else is sitting a drinking and having fun.  


'So, later on one of her friends walks past with her boyfriend - they're looking for an empty tent where they can get freaky, if you get my drift - and the girl she looks up and sees her friend asleep. It's warm for the time of year, so the tent flaps are all open. She sees her hair, and the shape of her body in the sleeping bag. She sees her shift, and kind of turn over, and then her boyfriend's all over her and she's not thinking about her friend anymore.  


'In the morning the kids all wake up and get together to make breakfast, and they notice that the girl, the one who went to sleep early last night, isn't there.  


'They just think she's slept in. So one of her friends go to check on her.  


'The tent's still unzipped, so she sticks her head in...  


'...and the sleeping bag's empty...  


'...all except for her friend's bloody scalp lying on top.'  


There was a snort of laughter.  


'Nice story, Jeff, for a little girl's slumber-party,' responded the other girl, Hannah.  


'It's a true story.' The boy sounded indignant. 'They never found her body. Just blood and the scalp with all the hair still attached. Never found the guy responsible, either.'  


'Doesn't explain what this cabin has to do with anything...'  


'Well, the cops never brought anyone to trial, but the locals had suspicions about this guy who lived out here. Shortly after the girl went missing, he disappeared as well.'  


There was another snort.  


Natasha thought about the heads on the shelf downstairs - of the one without any hair.  


'You've told your story, now can we go back to the--'  


'Woah, what is that?'  


The red sneakers were next to Clint's bow.  


'Check it out.'  


The bow was lifted up. Natasha felt Clint shift, his fists tensing up where they rested against her side.  


'Cody, put it down.'  


'Man, this thing is tight.'  


Natasha heard the boy straining with the string. She touched Clint's hand, trying to remind him that they were trying to remain unnoticed. There was a resounding thwack and a yelp as the kid let go of the string only to have it hit his unprotected wrist.  


'See, put it down before you hurt yourself again.'  


'Hey, lemme look at that.'  


'Sure.'  


'I don't like this...' Cindy put in.  


'This is a pretty fancy bow. Recurve.'  


'Since when do you know shit about archery, Sam?'  


'My cousins hunt. They all use compound bows though. Wow, that's a pretty heavy draw weight.'  


'Jeff, you said this place had been abandoned for years, right?'  


Natasha sensed the beginning of alarm in Hannah's voice.  


'Uh, yeah...'  


'Well, look at the floor. It's been cleaned. Recently. And the bow - there's no way that's been here for twenty years...'  


'Maybe a hunter, or someone...'  


'Then where are they?'  


The bang came from beneath them, startling even Natasha.  


'What the fuck was that!?'  


The shoes all skittered. Clint's bow was dropped with a thunk.  


There was another bang. Natasha felt the vibrations of it through the floorboards.  


'What the fuck? What the fuck?'  


'There's a trapdoor, look!'  


'Let's go. Please, let's just go.'  


'Shut up! Just...'  


Another bang.  


'Someone could be stuck down there. They could need our help...'  


'Fine, then you go Hannah.'  


'Seriously? You guys are all cowards.'  


The grey sneakers - process of elimination told Natasha the owner went by Sam - headed over to the trapdoor. Faded jeans knelt on the dusty floor and hands, almost covered by the sleeves of a navy blue sweatshirt, grasped the edges of the trapdoor.  


'I can't see sh--!'  


The next part happened quick. Before the final sound escaped his lips.  


It reminded Natasha of a nature documentary she had once seen, depicting the hunting methods of _Cteniza sauvagesi_ \- otherwise known as the trapdoor spider.  


A thick forearm had reached up. The skin had been pale, almost translucent, and the veins starkly visible. It had twisted its fingers up in the fabric of the boy's sweatshirt, and then it had yanked him down into the dark.  


The trapdoor slammed shut amidst screams and litanies of curse words. At least one of the teens fell over and started scrambling backwards.  


There were crashes and bangs from the basement.  


Natasha felt her heart beating faster, felt Clint try to move behind her. She elbowed him lightly in the ribs.  


'What the hell was that, Jeff?'  


'I don't know! I don't know.'  


'You don't know? Are you sure about that? Very funny, now knock it off. I almost had a fucking heart-attack.'  


'Hannah I wasn't...'  


'Sam! Get out here. It's not funny.'  


The girl yanked on the trapdoor.  


'It won't open.'  


'Hannah, we need to go! Now! We need to get back to the house and call the cops.'  


'But...'  


There was a scream, from somewhere below the cabin. The sort of scream no teenage boy would be caught dead making, unless the pain and terror were so much they couldn't help it.  


'We have to help him! Where are you guys going?'  


The pink wedges were next to the black-and-white sneakers, scurrying for the door. The red sneakers hesitated for a brief second before following.  


Hannah sprung up, whispering a short apology, before she too sprinted for the door.  


'We'll get help!' she promised the empty air.  


\--  


Natasha rolled out from under the bed. She took out her pistol and aimed it at the trapdoor.  


The cabin was silent now, apart from the noises she and Clint made as they moved.  


Clint grabbed his bow, with no complaints about the manhandling it had received. He set it on his back, nodded to Natasha, and reached for the trapdoor handle.  


Something splintered as Clint pulled and the trapdoor flew open, the latch busted.  


Nothing moved.  


Clint pulled out his flashlight and handed it to Natasha. She waited for him to grab hers and turn it on before she descended the stairs.  


The cellar was as they had left it, with one key difference.  


An open panel on one wall with a dimly lit passage behind it.  


They looked at one another.  


Clint sighed, drew his bow, nocked an arrow, and stepped forward.  


'Wait, I should go first,' Natasha said. She gestured to the width of the passage. 'Single-file. I'm better at close-range.'  


Clint shrugged and moved aside for her.  


Natasha now had a clear view of the tunnel.  


It reminded her a little of mining tunnels, with wooden support beams and packed dirt floors. There were lanterns, with candles in them, hanging on some of the beams.  


'This is beyond weird now...' Clint muttered.  


They edged forward.  


\--  


There were faint drag marks in the dirt.  


The tunnel had offered no forks or shut doors so far, so they knew they were heading the right way. The passage had a slight downward trajectory, and Natasha was aware of the metres of dirt above them, and of the air becoming cooler around them. There was a distinctive smell - a coppery, butcher shop tang with a whiff of decay.  


The passage became a little wider and curved slightly to the left.  


The ground beneath their feet changed abruptly, to concrete, and on either side were heavy steel doors with grates around eye-level.  


If they were beyond weird before, Natasha wondered where they were now.  


Without a word to each other they crouched, out of sight from the grates, before they carried on. Natasha heard nothing in the rooms to indicate they were occupied. All the time that sour, bloodsoaked scent kept getting stronger and the chill in the air became more pronounced.  


They were close enough to hear the exact moment the kid regained consciousness.  


At the end of the concrete corridor was their first fork, and as they reached that they heard groaning.  


Natasha lead them left.  


Yellow light spilled out into the corridor from an open door about ten feet from their position.  


That was when the screaming started.  


It was pure terror this time, gasping and breathless. Natasha recognised parts of the script the boy was reciting. _Please no. Please, please don't hurt me. Oh god, no. Please._  


The silhouette of a large figure appeared on the wall. Natasha heard boots squeak on what sounded like tiles.  


There was humming like the sound of a small generator or motor of some kind.  


The silhouette moved, circling something.  


Natasha moved quicker, her footsteps masked by the noises of both the kid and the machinery.  


Then something grating, like a drill or circular saw, started up and the kid was babbling and then shrieking like a banshee.  


Natasha dived and rolled, coming up to the thwack of an arrow puncturing the skull of a hulking man in a bloodstained apron.  


The saw dropped to the ground and twisted like a fish on land.  


'Coulson is not going to believe any of this when we tell him...' Clint said.  


The room was tiled, floor to ceiling, with a drain in the centre. Above the drain was a table, permanently stained and gouged in several places.  


Currently bound to it was the teenager with the grey shoes. Heavy leather straps crossed over his body, holding him in place. He wasn't talking anymore, so Natasha felt for a pulse. It was there, and in the absence of any obvious life-threatening injuries she assumed he had fainted.  


Clint fumbled with the generator and the saw stilled. He put it back on the table, next to an assortment of bloodied and blunted toolbox objects.  


Natasha crouched down next to the corpse on the floor.  


He was well over six feet tall, and seemed to be wearing nothing other than the apron, some rubber boots and matching gloves. His skin was pale, and Natasha knew his arm had been the one which had reached up through the trapdoor. There was a ragged, homemade mask over his mouth - probably to keep blood and bits of flesh from flying up into his face rather than out of any concern for the spread of infection.  


She pulled at the mask.  


She managed to pull it down, away from his lips, but the edges remained stuck. She traced her fingers along and found the fabric had been stitched to the skin behind his ears, with thick, black thread. The wounds were old, the flesh attempting to grow over and around the shiny, black stitches.  


His face was unremarkable. Age-wise, she put him around fifty. He wouldn't have looked out of place in a suit, standing in front of a class of bored fifteen-to-sixteen-year-olds. Natasha knew better than to assume anything.  


She checked him over while Clint undid the straps tying the kid down to the table.  


First up were the pockets of the apron.  


Natasha found a withered ear, and a photograph.  


The photograph was stained with blood, faded and over-exposed. Natasha could just make out the face of the dead man, standing next to a man in a sheriff's hat. Both men were smiling.  


'Nat, give me a hand here.'  


She left off her search to help Clint lift the boy off the table. He was heavier than his wiry frame let on, with the dead weight of insensibility. At some point during the ordeal his bladder had given in, and the ankles Natasha grasped were distinctly damp.  


They deposited the boy back at the fork in the path, facing the corridor with the cells. Clint jogged back to the torture room, and came back with a black permanent marker. Natasha imagined it to have been used for intimidation purposes, rather than any practical purpose - drawing dotted lines over limbs while the victim lay unable to move.  


Clint wrote in capital letters on the concrete wall.  


EXIT ===>  


THIS IS NOT A TRICK. HONEST.  


Natasha snorted.  


'What? It's true,' Clint said. 'Besides, if I was in his shoes I'd be too tired to bother wasting time thinking about reverse psychology.'  


Natasha took the pen from him and added her own message to the wall. Her penmanship was rather more pleasant looking than Clint's blocky, scrawl, she thought.  


_Seriously, kid, do not be an idiot. Get out of here quick. Before I change my mind about saving you._  


Clint left his flashlight next to the kid.  


'What? It's dark outside,' he said when Natasha looked at him.  


They went back to the torture room. Clint retrieved his arrow, while Natasha continued her search. She turned up nothing new.  


'So, I guess we know who was responsible for the mummified heads in the cellar,' Clint murmured. 'Did he stitch this to his own face or something?'  


'I don't know. I found this in his pocket.'  


Clint took the photo and looked at it.  


'Guess that would explain why no one caught him, if he was chummy with the local law. Is that this cabin in the background? Looked a lot nicer back then.'  


Natasha looked, but all she saw were vague shapes, grainy and indistinguishable.  


'I don't have your eyes,' she said.  


'No creepy mask stitched to his face either. Wait a second...'  


Clint handed the photo back to her and reached for the man's left glove. He pulled it off and lifted the guy's wrist.  


There was a mark - a tattoo - on the inside of his wrist. It looked like a crest of some kind. Natasha knew the kind, used to show allegiance or ownership, but she had never seen this particular one before.  


'It's alchemical, I think,' Clint muttered. 'That symbol there, it's the sign for mercury. And this here that's sulphur. And right above the two, that little circle thing, is the sign for salt. When the three come together it's called the alchemical wedding or something.'  


_Ah ha_ , thought Natasha, _I knew you weren't an idiot_.  


'And how do you know that?'  


Clint looked up and frowned, as if he hadn't realised he'd spoken aloud.  


'I, uh, saw a documentary on tv.'  


'What does it mean then? This guy having those symbols...'  


Clint shrugged.  


'Maybe he dabbles in alchemy. When he's not chopping up people. Or maybe he's just a nut.'  


He stood up and away from the body.  


'Twenty bucks says we find furniture made of human skin somewhere in here.'  


Natasha gave him a blank look.  


' _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ , seriously Natasha? We're having a movie night when we get back.'  


\--  


The corridor curved again.  


Another door opened into a room decorated with hooks and chains, and with a table saw in the middle. Everything was coated in a patina of old blood.  


'For when he's entertaining more than one guest?' Natasha said.  


\--  


There were four more 'nightmare rooms', as Clint referred to them, followed by a cupboard stacked with bones, before the corridor ended in a dead end.  


When they made their way back, all the way to the fork in the passage, Natasha was glad to see the kid was gone.  


This time they took the other fork.  


Steps stretched down into the gloom.  


Natasha saw drops of blood, scattered on the stairs. It looked like cast-off from a weapon.  


At the base of the stairs the shape of the tunnel changed again, the roof becoming lower and curved. The lights were weaker and fewer, leaving chasms of blackness like the water between stepping stones.  


She swept her flashlight over the floor, scanning for traps.  


A few metres in symbols appeared on the wall. They were daubed in paint, in chalk, scratched into the concrete with tools. There were more symbols like the ones on the dead man's wrist, all joined up together in various circles.  


'Can you make any of this out, Clint?'  


'I don't know, I'm not fluent in crazy, Nat. They look like seals of some kind. Look, I wasn't apprenticed to the circus fortune-teller, your guess is as good as mine.'  


'Well, it looks ominous.'  


They wandered on. A tiny room with a bed and some coat-hooks seemed to serve as a living space. And in a much bigger room next to it they found a great, old monster of a stove, as well as several chest freezers.  


Curiosity got the better of them.  


'Looks like dog to me,' Clint muttered.  


'There's hands in this one.'  


'Guess dog's the fallback menu then...'  


Clint let the lid of his freezer fall again.  


'Hey, look at this.'  


Nat left the ice-crusted limbs and went to look at a piece of paper taped to the wall.  


'I really hope that doesn't mean what I think it means...' Clint said, looking at her as she examined the drawing.  


A child's drawing.  


Clumsy crayon lines. Lollipop heads and flat, 2-D bodies. Block colours.  


There were two figures.  


One Natasha recognised as the man they'd killed. The child had drawn his apron, scribbled over the black with red, and the mask on his face.  


The other was smaller.  


Bright yellow marked out the hair, falling to the little figure's waist. A pink smile was drawn on her face. One stick arm and its spidery explosion of a hand was extended outwards, towards the man in the apron. His arm was also held out towards the child.  


Above, in a child's laborious lettering were two sentences.  


D A D D Y F E E D S M E  


I L O V E D A D D Y  


At the bottom of the picture, between the feet of the two figures, was a blue oval - a plate. Squiggly lines of red rose up, piled high, coiled up like spaghetti.  


'I'm willing to bet that's not candyfloss on her plate...' Clint said.  


Natasha hummed in agreement.  


\--  


They found the cell at the end of the corridor.  


The walls were crowded with seals, some seemingly painted in blood.  


Four different bolts and latches kept the door shut tight.  


There was an open slot at the bottom, through which food and other items could be passed.  


As they'd come down the corridor there had been singing; meaningless, child-like singing.  


Once they were within twenty feet the thing began to speak.  


'Daddy? Daddy is that you? I'm hungry. So hungry. It burns. You will feed me, won't you Daddy? You won't let me starve?'  


The voice rippled and warped - at one moment sickly sweet and all bows and rainbows, at the next deep and inhuman.  


Natasha was glad for that. It made things so much easier.  


Not so much for her - she'd have found it simple enough doing away with the creature even without the demon voice giving it away - but for Clint.  


'Daddy? Why won't you answer me...? Daddy?'  


'Your Daddy's gone,' Natasha said. 'He won't be feeding you anymore.'  


The thing was silent as Natasha crouched, trying to see through the slot in order to get a good angle. Something was telling her not to open the door, that things would go very badly if they opened the door.  


There was a stifled noise, a little hiccup of fear.  


'W-why? Where's Daddy? I want Daddy.'  


She must have been hiding in the corner, out of sight from the hole in the door. Natasha wasn't sure how best to coax her into the firing line.  


She saw the trembling of shadows, as the creature cried, but couldn't see the thing itself.  


'Daddy...I'm hungry.'  


She pushed up onto her knees and looked at the latches on the front of the door.  


All she'd need would be a few seconds to sight, aim and fire. The door didn't even need to be fully open. Just a crack would do.  


'Daddy...'  


Clint reached out and snatched her wrist.  


'That's a ba--'  


'Daddy!'  


The creature wailed, and then it screamed.  


The scream pierced and seemed to tickle at some primal place which made every muscle freeze. She was pulled out of it by Clint cursing.  


'Ow, ow, ow. Fuck!'  


He lowered his hands from his ears.  


'Are your ears buzzing, or is it just me? That better not have busted my hearing aids. SHIELD charges me for replacements...'  


Before Natasha could answer there was a harsh, unmistakable noise at the end of the corridor. They both turned around to look.  


'So, I'm guessing you haven't seen _Night of the Living Dead_ either. 'Cus this is kinda like that. Or maybe not. None of those guys had chainsaws.'  


Natasha changed her stance, while Clint nocked more arrows.  


The shuffling thing coming towards them was dead, Natasha was quite sure of that. Natasha could see the wall through the hole in its forehead.  


It moved with stiff, exaggerated movements, as if being manipulated by sticks or strings. The chainsaw swept from side to side in front, like a deadly version of a blind man's pole.  


Clint raised his bow. Natasha got ready to strike.  


On her signal Clint let go, and two arrows shot through the air and embedded in the walking corpse's eye sockets.  


It made no sound, but it stumbled, and Natasha pounced.  


She got behind it, somersaulting away from the blade.  


One kick to the back of a leg brought it down, and she emptied the clip of her handgun into the man's skull.  


She leapt back when the chainsaw came for her ankles, the arm still moving even when most of the brains were spilled out on the floor.  


'Nat! Get back!'  


She saw the distinctive tip of an explosive arrow already in place on Clint's bow.  


The corpse was levering itself off the floor, bits of skull and brain dropping off and hitting the floor.  


Clint's arrow went in through the mess around the mouth, disappeared deep into the body.  


Natasha shut her eyes before the arrow detonated.  


\--  


'You owe me...'  


Natasha picked a piece of small intestine off her jacket.  


'Owe you what?' Clint said.  


Natasha had not looked up to see if he was smiling. Because if he was, she wasn't sure she could be held responsible for her actions.  


All around her bits and pieces were sliding down the concrete walls, splatting softly on the ground near her.  


It was in her hair.  


The shockwave from the explosion had knocked her on her ass, and now her lap was full of viscera.  


It was in her bra.  


She could recall the wet slap which had hit her in the chest. It felt like it would bruise later.  


And the smell was everywhere.  


'I don't know yet. I haven't decided. But it's going to be big...'  


'You know I'm pretty much broke right?'  


'I'll think of something. Help me up?'  


She smiled at Clint, and extended out her hand.  


'Uh, can't you get up yourself?'  


Natasha looked at him.  


Clint sighed and shouldered his bow.  


Stepping over the legs, the only body parts which were more or less recognisable at first glance, he grasped her hand and hauled her up.  


Natasha took her time wiping her hands and face on his shirt.  


When she was done she turned her attention back to the locked door.  


She was in the middle of reloading her gun when Clint put a hand on her arm.  


'I might have an idea, and it might be shit, but just...give me a second...'  


The crying was back, echoing in the corridor.  


Natasha looked down at the legs on the floor. She didn't know what else the demon child was capable of.  


'If you start acting like you're possessed, I will shoot you. That's a promise.'  


'Wouldn't ask for anything less.'  


Clint crouched on the floor by the slot.  


'...hungry...so hungry...it hurts.'  


Clint fumbled around in his pockets, eventually producing a small pack of M&Ms.  


'Can you hold out your hand for me? I promise I'm not going to hurt you.'  


There was a sniffle.  


'What about the other one?'  


'I promise she won't hurt you either. I've got something for you here, something you can eat.'  


A hand appeared.  


It was hard to describe the exact shade of skin - a corpse-like grey, mottled with hints of blue. The nails were gnawed and stained. But it was recognisably human. Natasha had hoped for talons and scales.  


Clint carefully decanted a few of the candies into his palm and then tipped them into the smaller hand waiting near the ground.  


The hand closed in a fist and retracted back through the slot.  


They heard crunching. Then silence. Then another crunch.  


'So, what do you think? Good, bad, indifferent?'  


The hand appeared again, palm up.  


Clint dropped a few more of the chocolate coated peanuts into her hand. It disappeared again.  


Natasha nudged Clint with her shoe. The blood, bile and other internal secretions were starting to dry on her clothes and her skin. If cops arrived, assuming the teens from earlier made it back to their house without getting lost, it would not look good.  


Clint ignored her.  


The hand appeared a third time.  


'Ok, now I'm gonna need some answers before I give you anymore.'  


The creature whined.  


'Don't worry, they're not gonna be hard. I'll give you one candy for every question you answer, ok?'  


'Ok.'  


Clint dropped an M&M into her hand. The child made a noise of surprise.  


'See, easy. You answered a question just then. Next question, what's your name?'  


'Princess. That's what Daddy calls me.'  


'Princess. Alright.'  


Clint gave her a candy.  


'And how long have you been in this room, Princess?'  


'Always. Daddy says I can come out when I'm big and strong...'  


'Well, you seem pretty strong to me. So, uh, the food your Dad brings you...what's with that?'  


'I...I don't know...'  


'Sorry, I said I wouldn't ask any hard questions. Don't worry. You like the food you get given though?'  


'Yes. It's yummy, it gives me good dreams. But these are yummy too.'  


'Good to hear. I've got one more question, and I need you to be honest with me. If I open this door, what will you do?'  


There was silence for a few seconds.  


'You hurt my Daddy...'  


'Yes, but your Daddy was gonna hurt someone else. So, does that mean you're gonna try and hurt me and my friend if I let you out?'  


'Clint, what the fuck are you doing?' Natasha hissed.  


'Hey, I told you my idea might be shit.'  


'I don't...You'd let me out?'  


The tone sounded almost human.  


'If you promise not to hurt anyone, then yes I'll let you out. And you can have the rest of the candy too.'  


Natasha considered knocking Clint out, but at the same time she trusted him. Besides, he'd been the one who'd killed the man in the apron, on both occasions. If the little demon girl had beef with anyone, it'd be him.  


The creature took a deep breath.  


'Ok. I promise.'  


'I need to hear you say it all. Say 'I promise not to hurt anyone'.'  


'I promise not to hurt anyone.'  


'Good.'  


The locks were heavy and rusted. It took some effort for Clint to slide them clear.  


'Feel free to run, Nat. I wouldn't blame you.'  


'I want to see how this ends,' Natasha said, folding her arms.  


Clint smiled at her, before twisting the handle and pulling the door open.  


\--  


The man had clearly made some effort towards comfort. It wasn't enough to stop the place looking like a prison cell though.  


Against one wall a rusty metal-frame bed was covered in fleece blankets, pink and purple and patterned with unicorns and flowers.  


There was a stack of grimy plush toys in one corner, and crayons and sketchbooks on the floor.  


The whole room was illuminated by a single nightlight, throwing cut-out shadows of stars and moons onto the walls and ceilings.  


The girl was kneeling just behind the door.  


When the door opened she jumped up, and Natasha had only the briefest glimpse of her face - and her black eyes - before she launched herself at Clint.  


Natasha could have shot her before she reached him. Her hand had started to make the movements, but something held her back.  


Clint flinched as the child's head connected with his abdomen, and tiny arms reached up and snagged in his shirt.  


Nothing happened.  


Clint blinked and looked at Natasha. His expression clearly read: I'm being hugged by something which could quite easily kill me, probably both horribly and painfully.  


When a few more seconds passed without the little girl sinking her teeth into Clint's midriff, Natasha relaxed slightly.  


When the girl let go, which was about half a minute later, her face shone with tears. Her nose was running, and she looked like any other little girl who'd just been freed from a nightmarish concrete dungeon beneath a forest.  


'I'm hungry...' she said. There was that rippling effect again, but it was somehow fainter - like two people talking at the same time rather than the strange oscillation from before.  


'Here. I've got more food upstairs. But remember our promise. I kept my promise, so you have to keep yours.'  


The girl took the packet and shovelled the contents into her mouth. Quick as a fox, her eyes swivelling between Clint and Natasha. They were red. What Natasha had taken for black or dark brown showed its true colours under the harsh electric lighting.  


Finally her eyes turned to the mess on the floor and walls.  


She chewed thoughtfully.  


'I'm sorry I made Daddy try to hurt you. I got scared.'  


'I'm sorry too, Princess. But we didn't really have a lot of choice.'  


Natasha kept a close eye on the child. She was being remarkably pragmatic, seemingly only too willing to change her allegiance now that her original caretaker was spread out across the corridor.  


'Clint, we need to get out of here,' Natasha said.  


He looked at her and nodded.  


'Do I get to go outside?'  


The little girl looked between them in wonder.  


Natasha saw a flicker of something close to anger on Clint's face but it was gone by the time the girl looked back at him.  


'Yeah, yeah you do. Now, I need to pick you up so you don't cut your feet on...uh,' Clint glanced at the blood and gristle with their hidden shards of bone. 'Is that alright?'  


Princess nodded, and held out her arms. Clint lifted her up and she wrapped her arms around his neck. Natasha didn't want to know what her breath was like.  


\--  


They wound their way back through the tunnels, saying nothing for most of the journey. Natasha kept an ear out for the sound of voices overhead. It wouldn't exactly be the end of the world if they got detained by the police, but it meant more work for their handler and Natasha was determined to cause as few headaches as possible in her time as a SHIELD agent.  


Finally they emerged through the trap door into the cabin. The door was still open as the kids had left it when they'd run. There were no lights outside.  


The little girl went at once and stood in the doorway.  


With no shoes Clint would have to carry her through the woods, which would slow them down over time, especially once the adrenaline had completely worn off. It would be simpler to leave her for the cops to find.  


Natasha collected her things while Clint looked through one of the side pockets on his rucksack.  


'Got more food for you here if you're still hungry,' he said, producing a small packet of chocolate chip cookies.  


The girl didn't move.  


'Is that--?'  


'Yeah, that's the great outdoors. Not much to see right now, but when the sun comes up it'll be beautiful.'  


The child took a step forward and Natasha saw her shoulders move as she took a deep breath, as if trying to draw the woods themselves into her lungs.  


'You haven't got any shoes, so you're gonna have to ride on my shoulders for a while.'  


'Thank you.'  


The voice was a rumble, overlaid on the voice of a little girl.  


'I think I know where to go from here...to find my Mommy.'  


The girl looked back over her shoulder. She darted back snatched the cookies from Clint's hands, smiled at both of them, and twirling made her way onto the porch.  


'I'll keep my promise. Bye-bye.'  


Natasha saw her leap off the porch, but didn't see her land. It was as if the night had just plucked her out of existence.  


'Ok, then,' Clint said. He looked at Natasha. 'Well, at least I don't have to explain turning up at SHIELD with another deadly stray.'  


\--  


They stopped to rest for an hour or so before dawn, with the intention of napping.  


'Laura and I were talking about having kids...' Clint said. 'I wasn't too sure. I mean, I didn't have the best of childhoods so my knowledge of parenting is kinda crappy, but after today...I think I could handle it.'  


They were sat next to each other on the roots of a tree. Natasha turned and looked at the patch of darkness where she knew he was.  


'Might I suggest not telling your wife about the creepy demon child in the nightmare basement when you tell her why you've changed your mind.'  


'That's probably a good idea.'  


\--  


'Agent Barton. Agent Romanov,' Coulson greeted them both as they entered his office.  


Their latest reports were on his desk.  


'There a problem, sir?' Clint said as he sat down on the small couch against the wall.  


Natasha remained standing until Coulson gestured to a chair.  


'I was wondering if you could explain the last sections of these to me,' he said, tapping on the pair of reports, 'in more detail.'  


'Hey, I had Nat help me with the spelling and grammar. That thing should be perfect.'  


'I'm not questioning the quality of your reports, agents. I'm just struggling with...the...particulars.'  


'Well, no offence sir, but I did say you wouldn't believe us. And that was before the demon kid and the zombie and the freezer full of people.'  


'Zombie? You mean the reanimated individual you, uh,' Coulson opened up the report to find the relevant section, 'dispatched with an explosive arrow?'  


'He had a chainsaw, sir. I think my response was more than reasonable.'  


Coulson stopped short of rolling his eyes.  


'Yes, well. Let's return to the subject of the 'demon kid' as you refer to them. Why did you not then retreat and contact SHIELD?'  


Clint looked at Natasha.  


'Uh, didn't see the need, sir,' Clint said, looking back at Coulson with a shrug. 'Plus, we were kinda out in the middle of the woods. That's a lot of hiking looking for cell phone service. By then the local cops could've arrived. For all we know, some of the locals were involved in this shit.'  


'I wanted to neutralise the entity, Agent Barton opted for a different approach,' Natasha said.  


Coulson's gaze shifted to her, and she was sure he could see the parallels in the current situation and her own one not too long ago.  


'Yes, I know. For your sake Agent Barton, I really hope you haven't just kick-started the apocalypse.'  


'She promised not to hurt anyone,' Clint said. 'Her dad was the one doing all the killing and the kidnapping. That kid deserved a chance.'  


'Well, just hope it doesn't come back to bite you. That'll be all. Dismissed.'  


Natasha stood up straight away, but Clint remained where he was.  


'What happened to the cabin? Did the cops turn up in the end? Or have SHIELD taken over, already?'  


'You have more concerns, Agent Barton?'  


'The bodies in there. All those people. Someone's gonna be able to find out who they are, so their families know what happened to them, right?'  


Coulson nodded once.  


Clint seemed to relax a little.  


'Thanks. See ya 'round, sir.'  


\--  


'Shit, I forgot to ask about my request for leave. Be right back.'  


Clint stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned around.  


'Can't you just wait for it come through whenever?' Natasha said, folding her arms.  


'No. It has to be those specific five days.'  


'Am I going to regret asking why?'  


Clint smirked at her.  


'How do you feel about being an honorary aunt?'

**Author's Note:**

> I think it's just my head canon now that Clint knows random shit about the occult.  
> I hope you enjoyed it~


End file.
